Nursing staff deal reached for South Australian hospitals

An in-principle staffing agreement has been struck after lengthy negotiations between the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation and SA Health.

Until now, staffing requirements for South Australian country hospitals have been averaged over a year, but it is now planned to assess staffing demands every four weeks.

Union official Rob Bonner said it had taken six years to reach an agreement and it was expected to have a substantial impact on the quality of care in regional hospitals.

"The new agreement will require the activity and hours that go with that patient activity to be rostered within a month's cycle," he said.

"It will be meaning staff will have to be provided when they're needed and not having areas of overstaffing compensate for areas of understaffing, as has happened in the past."

The agreement also is to consider federally-licensed aged care beds, which were not included in the current formula for assessing staffing needs.

"The ludicrous situation, say at Barmera Hospital in the Riverland, is the vast majority of beds on site are actually Commonwealth-licensed aged care beds and yet they're invisible for staffing formula purposes," Mr Bonner explained.

"This will mean that over the next three years the activity that does exist within the aged care beds will be recognised."